Jennifer Raskas is the Director, Washington, DC at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, where she oversees the institute’s vision, strategy, programs, and partnerships in the Greater Washington area. Through this work, she leads the institute’s efforts to provide Washington-based Jewish leaders with thought leadership rooted in Jewish sources that help them tackle the biggest challenges facing the Jewish Community. She is also the Co-Director, with Imam Abdullah Antepli and Yossi Klein Halevi, of the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Muslim Leadership Initiative.

Jennifer received her Master’s in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government where she studied democracy, Arabic, and Middle East studies.  She graduated from Columbia University, Magna Cum Laude, with a BA in psychology and a concentration in political science. Jennifer is the founder and an inaugural scholar of the International Halakha Scholars Program, of the Susi Bradfield Women’s Institute of Halakhic Leadership of Ohr Torah Stone. She is also a trained facilitator for Resetting the Table, an organization that builds meaningful dialogue and deliberation across divides.

Jennifer has extensive experience in formal and informal Jewish education, as well as interfaith and intergroup work. She teaches classes widely on Hebrew literary approaches to readings in Tanakh and is a trained educator for the Matan Institute of Torah Studies program – Jewish Women Through the Ages. Her writings have appeared in academic journals and in online learning forums.